Ahead of the upcoming governorship and State House of Assembly elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been urged to avoid the controversies that marred the presidential and National Assembly polls. Yabagi Sani, Chairman of the Inter‑Party Advisory Council, told our correspondent on Sunday that INEC must perform better than it did in Saturday’s elections. On 28 February, Sani had instructed INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu to proceed with the collation of results despite the walkout and grievances raised by political parties during the presidential election. However, he now emphasizes that INEC must not violate the law governing the transmission of election results on 11 March.
Sani explained, “INEC should ensure there is no repeat of what happened in the presidential and National Assembly elections, because the evidence shows that the guidelines and the law—especially those concerning electronic transmission of results—were not followed on 25 February. It is now up to the courts to interpret what this means for the election. From a layperson’s perspective, the fundamental law was circumvented, but only judges can give a definitive ruling. Some presidential candidates are already heading to court. Given Nigeria’s outcry after that election, our advice to INEC is to prevent any repeat of such legal violations.”
The presidential candidate of the Action Democratic Party added that election officials must meet expectations, noting that the legally mandated transmission of results boosted voter confidence and contributed to the high turnout on Saturday. “INEC needs to be more vigilant in ensuring its staff live up to expectations because there were infractions,” he said. “The transmission of results is the cornerstone of the Electoral Act; it gave people confidence to vote in large numbers, confidence that was later dashed.”
The IPAC Chairman, who believes the IReV did not fail, argued that only the channel for the presidential election was compromised. He stated, “Some of us think the technological failure lies with the BVAS, not with INEC’s transmission of results. If someone hacks a system, the victim may not be aware. The hackers could be outside the country; the system is open source. The presidential channel was blocked, but the National Assembly channel was not. That is why I suspect hackers were involved, although I cannot be certain. The data structures for the president and the National Assembly differ, which may explain the discrepancy. Nonetheless, what happened on Saturday was not a positive development for democracy.”
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